Reciprocal altruism implies that voters will dislike giving money to the poor if, as in the United States, the poor are perceived as lazy. In contrast, Europeans overwhelmingly believe that the poor are poor because they have been unfortunate. This difference in views is part of what is sometimes referred to as "American exceptionalism." Link

At face value, the GOP Platform seems to be filled with inherent contradictions. How can you claim to be against government spending, yet support massive spikes in military spending and corporate farm subsidies? How can you claim that the National Debt is the single greatest threat facing the country, yet simultaneously claim that raising revenue is completely off the table?

Until you reach the conclusion that there really is no higher principle in the Republican Party than demonizing the poor and taking punitive actions against them at every opportunity.

Dusk-You-n-Me:Reciprocal altruism implies that voters will dislike giving money to the poor if, as in the United States, the poor are perceived as lazy. In contrast, Europeans overwhelmingly believe that the poor are poor because they have been unfortunate. This difference in views is part of what is sometimes referred to as "American exceptionalism." Link

the just world fallacy is the foundation of modern conservative thought

vernonFL:If you run around calling yourself a Christian, you cannot at the same tome subscribe to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Well yeah, considering that Rand was an atheist, I'm pretty sure that would violate some of the core tenants of Christianity. But it's certainly possible to follow other forms of libertarian ideology without running afoul of any Christian tenants. If you hold that caring for your fellow man is an individual and not a collective responsibility, that is consistent with both Christian teaching and libertarianism.

There are bronze plaques embedded in every twentieth or so sidewalk section in my neighborhood that read "Built by Work Projects Administration." I would really, really love to get one of those. The thing is, those sidewalks are in awesome condition, considering they are 80 years old, so it would take an act of vandalism for me to get one. They built to last back then.

Jackson Herring:Dusk-You-n-Me: Reciprocal altruism implies that voters will dislike giving money to the poor if, as in the United States, the poor are perceived as lazy. In contrast, Europeans overwhelmingly believe that the poor are poor because they have been unfortunate. This difference in views is part of what is sometimes referred to as "American exceptionalism." Link

the just world fallacy is the foundation of modern conservative thought

"Is that just philosophy you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?"

Dancin_In_Anson:TFA: "You know what?" he added. "The very people who complain ought to ask their grandparents if they worked at the W.P.A."

A return to the work camps of the 30s eh? I'm down with that.

Do you have any idea how many feral pigs we could Freedom Hunt with a budget of 6.7% of the GDP?

At least, that's what I assume the money would be earmarked for. The House is notoriously hostile to frilly things like repairing roads/bridges/tunnels, energy generation and transmission, pollution remediation, and other Commie plots.

(Heck, I'd be happy with programs that went around cities, harvested condemned/decrepit properties for scrap/recycling, and converted them back into fields/parks/whatever. Steady work with little training required. I'd wager the ROI is pretty good in terms of increased value (and therefore property taxes) collected from the surrounding buildings, as well as the increased business revenue you see when your neighborhood doesn't look like Thunderdome.)

Reagan basically told Ohioans they were shiftless and lazy when steel died there -- it was all their own fault, and the only reason unemployment soared was because they were all lazy. Then he cut all of the employment and retraining programs (like CETA and the BEOG).

chimp_ninja:(Heck, I'd be happy with programs that went around cities, harvested condemned/decrepit properties for scrap/recycling, and converted them back into fields/parks/whatever. Steady work with little training required. I'd wager the ROI is pretty good in terms of increased value (and therefore property taxes) collected from the surrounding buildings, as well as the increased business revenue you see when your neighborhood doesn't look like Thunderdome.)

You could start in Detroit. I would assume that those that are left and are unemployed would be tickled shiatless for the opportunity to do hard manual labor for their dinner.

Talondel:vernonFL: If you run around calling yourself a Christian, you cannot at the same tome subscribe to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Well yeah, considering that Rand was an atheist, I'm pretty sure that would violate some of the core tenants of Christianity. But it's certainly possible to follow other forms of libertarian ideology without running afoul of any Christian tenants. If you hold that caring for your fellow man is an individual and not a collective responsibility, that is consistent with both Christian teaching and libertarianism.

The Bible can be used to justify all kinds of things, It's a blank canvas upon which we impose our own worldview.

"I'm concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor. That if you're poor, somehow you're shiftless and lazy." OH Governor John Kasich. Who then went on to sign a bills slashing Medicaid, Chips, WIC, a Union busting bill and then went off for a steak dinner at Morton's of Chicago

Serious Black:Talondel: vernonFL: If you run around calling yourself a Christian, you cannot at the same tome subscribe to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Well yeah, considering that Rand was an atheist, I'm pretty sure that would violate some of the core tenants of Christianity. But it's certainly possible to follow other forms of libertarian ideology without running afoul of any Christian tenants. If you hold that caring for your fellow man is an individual and not a collective responsibility, that is consistent with both Christian teaching and libertarianism.

The Bible can be used to justify all kinds of things, It's a blank canvas upon which we impose our own worldview.

I'd call it a rainbow canvas. So many words, so many authors, you can pick whatever color you like.

Kasich screwed the pooch SO HARD when he went to step one of the Koch Brothers playbook and tried to destroy every single civil service union in the state at the same time within months of getting elected. Had he just tried the teachers he probably would have won, but in a similar shiatstorm like Scott Walker got involved in.

Instead he pissed off just about everyone but the tea party-lite Republicans down in southern Ohio and got his ass handed to him on Issue 5. He's laid incredibly low the past 18 months but is basically still the same douchbag who championed all that shiat not that long ago.

I have a feeling that there are going to be more and more Republicans making statements like these to try to win the moderates back because after their latest behavior, they know that they are losing them.

Dancin_In_Anson:chimp_ninja: (Heck, I'd be happy with programs that went around cities, harvested condemned/decrepit properties for scrap/recycling, and converted them back into fields/parks/whatever. Steady work with little training required. I'd wager the ROI is pretty good in terms of increased value (and therefore property taxes) collected from the surrounding buildings, as well as the increased business revenue you see when your neighborhood doesn't look like Thunderdome.)

You could start in Detroit. I would assume that those that are left and are unemployed would be tickled shiatless for the opportunity to do hard manual labor for their dinner.

No. Certain people are lazy and have no interest in improving their community or working for a living. You know which people I mean, right? *wink, wink*

Reagan basically told Ohioans they were shiftless and lazy when steel died there -- it was all their own fault, and the only reason unemployment soared was because they were all lazy. Then he cut all of the employment and retraining programs (like CETA and the BEOG).

Maybe Kasich has a memory.

Probably, but not the way you might think. Kasich's actually a Pittsburgh native, and the community where he grew up (McKees Rocks) has become fairly distressed since deindustrialization.

/Youngstown native//Born three weeks before Black Monday///Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do

InmanRoshi:At face value, the GOP Platform seems to be filled with inherent contradictions. How can you claim to be against government spending, yet support massive spikes in military spending and corporate farm subsidies? How can you claim that the National Debt is the single greatest threat facing the country, yet simultaneously claim that raising revenue is completely off the table?

Until you reach the conclusion that there really is no higher principle in the Republican Party than demonizing the poor and taking punitive actions against them at every opportunity.

I don't think that's quite it. I don't think "hating poor people" is the end goal. I think if you want a condensed view of conservative ideology it would be better summed up as "people must be punished into success." Nothing else will do. If you aren't doing right then the only solution is to punish you are fixed.

Break the law? We will send you to prison and punish you so that, even though we have no plan for reintegrating you into society, you will realize that crime is bad and you don't want to go to prison again. Are you poor? Well lending you a hand won't do any good. We have to punish you until you realize it's bad to be poor. Schools under performing? We'll cut their funding and punish them until they realize they should perform better. Foreign country acting in ways we don't like? We will punish-bomb the shiat out of you and then probably have to bomb the shiat out of the people who take over after the initial bombing.

It's obvious how this philosophy becomes more and more ridiculous as you try to apply it to everything. However, it does explain a lot of what conservatives do/believe.

12349876:Serious Black: Talondel: vernonFL: If you run around calling yourself a Christian, you cannot at the same tome subscribe to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Well yeah, considering that Rand was an atheist, I'm pretty sure that would violate some of the core tenants of Christianity. But it's certainly possible to follow other forms of libertarian ideology without running afoul of any Christian tenants. If you hold that caring for your fellow man is an individual and not a collective responsibility, that is consistent with both Christian teaching and libertarianism.

The Bible can be used to justify all kinds of things, It's a blank canvas upon which we impose our own worldview.

I'd call it a rainbow canvas. So many words, so many authors, you can pick whatever color you like.

Yeah, but the gosh durned gh3ys took over our rainbows! DAMN YOU FARTBAMA!

Serious Black:The Bible can be used to justify all kinds of things, It's a blank canvas upon which we impose our own worldview.

It's one of the reasons that I learned that it's futile for atheists to try to debate scripture. There are just so many different ways for people to interpret it (even if they claim to be literalists) that it's impossible to nail anything down. The moment you try, you're told that you're either misinterpreting it or ignoring "context".

That's why I stick to non-scriptural arguments like The Problem of Evil.

Low-income housing (oh, so shockingly) tends to be constructed with no regard to energy efficiency. Crappy insulation, leaky everything, the works. So they're cheap in terms of rent, but the all-in cost of living there is actually pretty steep for what you get.

How most of the US handles it now: Poor people in cities rack up massive energy bills despite living in small spaces with few appliances. The bills get unreasonable, so we pay them through the tax system in the form of subsidies and poverty assistance. This continues forever.What is starting to be done in your smarter cities: Pay teams of minimally-trained people to visit low-income housing, particularly large apartment complexes where every unit is more or less the same, so figuring out how to fix up one unit makes the rest very easy. Patch, seal, insulate, tighten, etc. Put in all the goofy one-dollar fixes that pay off over time (inject foam into leaky spots, weatherstrip doors/windows, wrap exposed hot water pipes, gasket outlets, put aerators on bathroom sinks, tighten up plumbing, etc.) and teach the residents (if they give a crap) as you're doing it. Lower their bills, therefore lower the amount of assistance needed. Along the way, the minimally-trained people build a resume that can get them into general contracting and construction.

But apparently, we couldn't hire 100,000 people for a year or two to do this nationally, because socialism and therefore.

Fizpez:Kasich screwed the pooch SO HARD when he went to step one of the Koch Brothers playbook and tried to destroy every single civil service union in the state at the same time within months of getting elected. Had he just tried the teachers he probably would have won, but in a similar shiatstorm like Scott Walker got involved in.

Instead he pissed off just about everyone but the tea party-lite Republicans down in southern Ohio and got his ass handed to him on Issue 5. He's laid incredibly low the past 18 months but is basically still the same douchbag who championed all that shiat not that long ago.

Dad works for the state. My brother's a police officer, and I have many friends who are teachers. Every one of them knows that there are schmucks who are a waste of a paycheck, and independently, each of them said that if Kasich had tried to get the unions on board, there was a chance for legitimate reform.And the best part about Kasich? He pissed off all the Republicans with the Medicaid expansion for Obamacare. So he's saying stuff like this that might -- MIGHT -- make him more palatable in a general election, and he's going to get a Tea Party candidate running against him in the primary.